by Jay Lake
“I am back,” I responded. “And I do need your help.”
“As Mother Iron foretold.” He tipped his head toward me. A nod? A bow?
“Foretold or not, the moment is here. I have caused a problem you may be able to sort out.”
“Explain, please.”
I got the impression he didn’t very often remember to say “please.”
We squatted on our heels in the cold presence of the machines while I told him about Blackblood, about Iso and Osi, about Corinthia Anastasia and the Selistani embassy, about the pardine Revanchists. I left out nothing, and did little to alleviate my own sorry role. I had gotten the entire affair wrong almost from the beginning. As a result of my own poor judgment I’d placed two deicides on a god’s tail.
When I was done, Archimandrix remained quiet for a while. From the set of his head, I surmised he was squinting thoughtfully, as very smart persons will do when confronted with an idea outside their notions. Intelligence could be so limiting at times.
“You want my sorcerer-engineers to oppose these divine twins.”
“I do not think them divine,” I replied quietly. “Very old and very powerful, yes.”
“The fall of Marya is being spoken about the city,” he said. “Her loss troubles Below, and imperils women everywhere. That these ones should claim another god from Copper Downs is unacceptable.”
“You will block them from Blackblood?”
“I can do better than that.” Now I could hear the grin in his voice. “Much better.”
“Then I leave you with this problem. I have more to do, and time is terribly precious for me right now.”
Archimandrix touched my shoulder. His heavy leather glove was as cold as the machine beside us. “See to your people and the missing child. My sorcerer-engineers will see to the gods of our city.”
It was all I could do in this moment. “Thank you.”
I knew who my next contact would be. Blackblood needed another line of defense. Arranging chessmen on the board, Skinless was my next play.
* * *
The best way to find the avatar was to head for Blackblood’s temple from Below. Unfortunately, I knew that path all too well. Following it reminded me overmuch of Septio, who had brought me here, and up through the labyrinth that joined Below with the sacred precincts. I passed into a familiar corridor of carved, screaming faces—homage to the pain god, or an ossuary of souls, I could not say.
As I walked, I whispered the avatar’s name. “Skinless … Skinless…” In the unquiet tunnels, that sound carried to blend in with the drips, the rivulets, the groaning of the earth, the occasional distant knocking and banging. I felt as if I were calling a lost goat. “Skinless … Skinless…”
I continued to suspect that the avatar had been following me for days. Surely he would be found now, here, close to his home.
At one point I stopped and turned to look behind me. A great, gelid eye peered back from a muscled face. He was so close I could have touched him with my tongue. A shock of surprised fear coursed through my veins before quickly settling.
“I bear a message for your god,” I told Skinless.
Great hands flexed, tendons sliding over fat, along muscle, as veins throbbed. I had fought this one too—was that true of all my friends?—and knew how difficult he was to even check for a brief moment. Never to be defeated, not by me.
“I have wronged Blackblood, grievously. A pair of hunters are on his trail now.” Slowly, carefully, I detailed my missteps with Iso and Osi, and my fears for what they planned.
Skinless listened, nodding, with as thoughtful an expression as that great, flayed face could manage. When I had spun my entire tale, I finished by saying, “I have asked Archimandrix and his sorcerer-engineers to deal with the twins before they ever reach your temple. But the god must make ready.”
Another long, slow nod. Then one great hand reached out, finger extended, to delicately brush against the not-so-gentle bulge of my belly.
“Yes, I’ll be careful.” I tried not to think of my missed leap to the warehouse roof this afternoon. I needed to stop acting as if I were a Blade in prime condition, and start behaving like a pregnant woman.
If only everyone else would let me do so.
He mimed picking me up, carrying me, as he had once done when I was wounded.
“No,” I replied. “I shall make my own way. But thank you.”
We parted then Below, uneasy friends, he to his god of bitter dregs, me to my plotting.
* * *
My next step would conveniently bring me to a resting place for the night. I had need to raise a great noise against the Selistani embassy but it would do me no good to run through the streets decrying a stolen child. Who would believe me? More to the point, who would care?
Children were essentially disposable, unless they happened to be heirs to a great fortune or the objects of great love. My own life was sad testament to that truth.
And in the scheme of the fate of cities, well, the Rectifier was right. The matter of one child was irrelevant. Even counterproductive. It was up to me to save Corinthia Anastasia. By saving her, I could make things a little safer for my own daughter-to-be. By saving her, I could do what no one had ever done for me.
Not even the Dancing Mistress or Federo had saved me. They had only used me for another purpose. No more.
The world could be repaid one shred at a time. In the meanwhile, I still needed to create some opposition.
I climbed back up to the streets and walked briskly through the falling snow to the Tavernkeep’s place. My last exit there had been amid riot, so my welcome was uncertain. That was also the place where I could most easily find disaffected Selistani. They were the ones I could rely upon to raise that great noise and be heard. Most of Copper Downs, if they cared in the slightest, already saw the Prince of the City and his embassy as masters to the refugees. If I could mobilize these same men against that authority, I could bring wider attention on the embassy and slow their departure whenever they made ready to leave.
Anything to keep Corinthia Anastasia in the city until I could rescue her. Or force her captors to release her. Anything to shine the light of the public’s dubious regard on Surali and her betrayals. Like all roaches, she prospered best hidden in the shadows.
A man watched at the mouth of the Tavernkeep’s alley. I simply walked past and backhanded him without breaking stride. He stumbled away from me with a curse, so I spun to follow up with the short knife in my left hand and my right fingers clutching his throat.
“Who ordered you here?” To my surprise, I realized he was Selistani.
“N-none,” he gasped.
“You just happen to be sheltering from the snow by standing in an alley mouth.” I closed my fingers on his throat. Any moment now he would realize he outweighed me by at least double, and I would be forced to either kill him or take to my heels.
“Y-you are c-crazed.” His voice was cracking, probably from my pressure on his Adam’s apple.
“Go home,” I growled. “Hide for a few days. It won’t matter after that.” I stomped hard on his instep to give him something to think about as he limped away. Then I left him standing there with the gift of breath still in his lungs.
I realized that while I was no longer in a red rage, my anger at the people who were bedeviling me had not diminished in the least. Still, I could be generous with the lives of others.
Inside, the Tavernkeep’s place was as quiet as I’d seen it since returning from across the sea. For a moment I was taken aback, wondering if my countrymen had departed. Very few pardines were present. The endless round of gambling men was reduced to a few diehards.
The Tavernkeep, however, was at his bar.
“Greetings,” I said. “If you have a cook working tonight, I would enjoy some curry.”
He put down a narrow yellow bottle he’d been examining. “Welcome, Green. Do you bring chaos on your sleeve again tonight?”
That brought a smile
to my face. “Not unless it already lies in wait for me here.”
His lips pursed; then he turned to look back into the kitchen. Moments later he returned with a small stone bowl of the pardine bournewater. “This will serve you well.”
Grateful, I took the bowl. “I am rarely certain what serves me well anymore.” I sipped at the drink. It went down much as its namesake—clear and cold, tasting of rocks in the high thin air, but also of the stuff of life. “Where are the Dancing Mistress and her Revanchists?”
“They pursue an errand.”
Something deliberately oblique in his tone caught at my ear. “In truth? On this night?”
“I cannot say why.”
What or where, he might be able to tell me, but the pardines were not my errand. Not right now. “I wish them well of it.”
That brought a snort of amusement. “If you do not carry chaos on your sleeve, what does bring you here this evening?”
“Looking for chaos elsewhere.” I nodded over my shoulder at the room—heavy wooden pillars, beams overhead, a low fire, quiet voices scattered about. “Where is the Selistani wrecking crew which has been occupying your dining room of late? I have need of their services.”
“Some are here. Some have gone off with the Dancing Mistress. Many are upstairs sleeping.”
“Already?” It was barely dark outside.
“They drank away their sorrows after your last riot, I believe. There is always a price to be paid for such.” He glanced back at the kitchen again. “The boy is out on an errand. Can you abide awhile for your food?”
“May I prepare it myself?” I hated the diffidence in my voice.
The Tavernkeep stared a long moment, then flicked his ears. “Of course.”
* * *
Commanding a kitchen again, however briefly, was a taste of the peace I’d been longing for. One always knows where one stands with food. Ingredients, cookware, time, and skill could be combined so that the only surprises were whatever the cook planned.
Chowdry had never been trained as I, but he’d lived all his life with Selistani cuisine, and so had substituted long experience for my refined knowledge in stocking this kitchen. At least the portion of it dedicated to human cookery. I ignored the dry-cured game haunches and bins of desiccated flowers that served the needs of pardine cuisine. Instead I attended to the paneer cheeses, the strong spices, the tubs of spinach and chickpeas and beans and rice that were the building blocks of what I sought.
Curry, of course. The sambar podi was readily identified. I sniffed at it. The pungency was clearly from the sun-warmed south—no Stone Coast greenhouse could have grown this. I smiled, carried by the spice’s scent back to better days in the Temple of the Silver Lily when I had traded recipes with the cooks and been allowed the run of the kitchen.
I found coconut-milk stock already prepared. That I set upon the iron stove to warm while I hunted vegetables and meat to furnish the curry with. Most of what I could locate was the carrots, cabbage, and suchlike of northern cooking, but there were some good, honest onions. And of course the spinach. I did not attempt the pardine larder in my pursuit of meat. I did find a slab of fish in a stone cold crock—from the texture of the flesh, a redfinned shark taken out of these northern waters.
That was sufficient.
I spent a very happy twenty minutes chopping, sautéing, and blending, with several wide-ranging trips through Chowdry’s spice selection until my curry was powerful enough to blister a dead man’s lips. Once the dish was simmering nicely, complete as I could make it, I cleaned the knives and boards I’d used, wiped out the pans, then served myself a generous bowl. I left the pot warming for any others who might hunger soon.
Cooking was better than prayer. Maybe even better than sex.
I tucked in, surprised to discover how hungry I was. Another thing I’d soon have to take more care for. I needed to keep myself and the baby fed without racing through the entire day on nervous energy and anger. I touched my belly again as I ate, apologizing to my daughter. She seemed to have nothing to say in return, so I left her to her peace.
When I was done, the Tavernkeep took my bowl. “More?”
The pot I’d left on the stove beckoned, but I was satisfied. “Enough for now.” I looked back at the room. What I wanted could not be done in this evening’s storm, and besides, getting men out into the freezing wet dark would require a greater cause than I could likely argue right then. “I would ask a favor. May I engage a room for my night’s rest?”
“They are all full.” A deliberately human regret tinged his voice. “I can find you a blanket if you want to sleep down here on a bench or the floor by the fire.”
“That will do.” I concealed my disappointment. The idea of an actual bed had been very tempting. “I plan to rouse these men early. I’d like to borrow a decent-sized pot and a metal spoon.”
“Do not come up to the third floor with those,” he growled.
I nodded and thanked him. In time I took my kitchenware and the proffered blanket and made myself comfortable near the heat. I was as safe here as anywhere this night. At least people watched the door in this place. Still, I slept with my short knife in my hand.
* * *
The common room was fully dark except for glowing coals when I awoke. The oil lamps within were long since wicked down. Not even their scent remained in the room’s close, stale air. The Tavernkeep’s place had no windows on the ground level, but I was sure dawn had not yet stolen into the skies outside.
A number of my countrymen slept on the floor—more than I’d seen last night. Either the Dancing Mistress’ delegation had returned, or some of those upstairs had descended once more to the common room. I’d have woken up to any raucous party, though.
The door was barred when I checked it. Interesting. To the best of my knowledge, the Tavernkeep didn’t really keep closing hours. At least he had not done so in the past.
I slipped the bar, cracked open the door, and peered outside. My breath steamed in the air. Several inches of snow blanketed the ground, the last of yesterday evening’s tracks filled in to soft hollows. The sky above was crystal sharp, stars glinting like knife points through velvet. No one watched. The whole city might have been asleep.
Perfect. This quiet morning would find me making trouble in a very public fashion.
It did not take me long to visit the privy at the back of the tavern. Then I put some fresh coals on the quiescent fire, poked it to life, and took up my pot and my spoon. I was not much for speeches, the Lily Goddess knew, but I needed these men. And I would be shameless about their need for me, or at least for Endurance. Mother Green, indeed.
I began walking among the sleeping men, banging the implements together and shouting in Seliu:
“Up, up, up! You are my army for today. In the name of the ox god Endurance and all good men of Selistan, up, up up!”
I went on in that vein for several minutes, until three dozen bleary, hostile faces glared at me.
“You know who I am.”
Nods and mumbled agreement.
That was inspirational. I continued, glad I’d never thought to train for a Temple Mother. They had to speak. “You also know the Prince of the City is here, to oppose my work and snatch me back to Kalimpura.”
Those words brought a more puzzled blankness.
“They are here,” I said, “to take us all home. Whatever brought you to Copper Downs will not matter to the Street Guild. This embassy is rounding up strays. I am the most famous of Kalimpura’s runaways, but I am far from the only one they seek to box and take home on the hold of their ship.”
Now I had their attention, along with murmured discontent and more eye rolling.
“We’re going to take the fight to the popinjay and his bastards.” Once more I whapped the spoon against the pot for emphasis. Grasp their attention, keep it. Like sheep after a goat, men would follow anyone with strong words and a bright sword. “All of us. For your sake. For mine. For the god Endurance. A
nd for everyone who came here because they could never find their way out of one life into a better one back in Selistan.” My voice dropped, I almost hissed the next words. “I know what this means to you. To all of us. And we will not be pushed.”
Bleary, confused, the gathered men muttered agreement as they adjusted their clothing and scratched their nethers. I was the only woman here, but they all knew me. I was famous among my countrymen here in Copper Downs. Every one of this group had somehow found the gumption and resources to cross the Storm Sea. I wondered how long it would take them to open shops, or locate a trade they could work their way into, then send back for brothers, wives, children, cousins. In that moment I could see half a generation into the future. A wave of dark brown faces would be living here because the social powers of this place could not force the lowborn into a lifetime of hard labor for tiny reward, as did the guilds and courts back in Kalimpura.
Copper Downs relied on force of habit and the shame of class to keep people down. To someone from a caste society, that was an open door.
“You will not be pushed,” I said, keeping my voice low. “You left our home for something better. Are you ready to be forced back on someone else’s whim?”
“What do you want us to do?” shouted one of the men. He could just as easily have been my father’s brother, from the set of his nose and eyes. A Bhopuri.
I smiled at him. “Stand before the Selistani embassy. Follow them in a group when they venture out. Do not let the Prince of the City and his lackeys pass back and forth unnoticed. Embarrass them.” I did not want the embassy to take ship yet—they could not—but this group were not the ones to stop them. Slow them, yes. “If they look to be packing out to the harbor, send swift word to me. Let the Rectifier know. They cannot be allowed to leave without first being called to account.”
That was as close as I dared approach the truth of what I wanted. I could scarcely raise an army here, but I could and would harass Surali and her minions.
“Remember,” I added, “you will not be pushed.” That was not much of a slogan, but it was what I had that morning. Mother Vajpai would have done much better. Mother Meiko would have just terrified them into submission without a word. Me, I had to argue with an eloquence borrowed from only the gods knew where.
